Stonehaven Adds Six Professionals to Team to Support Strong Momentum

We are proud to announce key personnel additions as part of our continued expansion strategy. 

Rishi Shukla has joined as Product Owner.  Mr. Shukla joins Stonehaven’s 15-member Development, Research & Data Team, led by Alex Brooks, who builds, manages, and maintains NEXUS, Stonehaven’s bespoke technology operating system that supports the entire capital markets lifecycle between Affiliate Partners (investment bankers and placement agents), companies and investors.

Daniel Hong & Kayle Watson have both joined as Directors of Business Development.  Messrs. Hong & Watson will work with Stonehaven’s Chief Growth Officer, Mark Sullivan, CFA, to expand the footprint of Stonehaven’s platform across the ecosystem of independent bankers and placement agents.

Edward Corrao has joined as Mandate Operations Counsel, and Vy Theologidy has joined as Mandate Due Diligence & Operation Manager.  Both Mr. Corrao and Ms. Theologidy join Stonehaven’s six-person Mandate Team, led by Brian Gaffney, which oversees all Client contracting, due diligence, and platform operations.

Clint McGowan has joined as Director of Compliance.  Mr. McGowen will work with Stonehaven’s CCO, Steven Jafarzadeh, to expand Stonehaven’s growing compliance framework.

We feel very fortunate to have attracted such talented individuals to the team.  We are excited to utilize their experience to further enhance our infrastructure and SaaS offering, designed to enable Stonehaven’s Affiliate Partners to move faster, obtain more reach and close more business.

The expansion brings Stonehaven’s management and operations team to 35 professionals.  Stonehaven’s expanded team is part of a broader effort to grow the platform from 120 professionals today to 200+ over the coming 6-12 months.  Stonehaven’s platform has been averaging $1B+ in transactions for the past two years, holds 170+ live Mandate engagements, supports 240+ Cross Marketing Agreements between its Affiliate Partners, and continuously builds exciting technological enhancements.  Stonehaven expects it’s its placement volume to double in 2023, by investing heavily in infrastructure, technology, and its community. 

About Stonehaven

Stonehaven is a global private capital markets FinTech platform for a diverse community of investment bankers and placement agents (Affiliate Partners).  We support our Affiliate Partners with a robust broker-dealer infrastructure, our proprietary NEXUS SaaS technology, a collaborative ecosystem, a large universe of active mandates, origination capabilities, marketing services, industry data, and industry insights.  We are active across real estate, private equity, venture capital, private credit, hedge funds, long-only strategies, direct private placements, secondaries, and M&A.  

www.stonehaven-llc.com

About Rishi Shukla

Rishi Shukla is the Product Owner at Stonehaven. Mr. Shukla manages and maintains the end-to-end execution of the product roadmap. He reports to Alex Brooks and works closely with the executive team to help scale development operations and manages a team of developers and analysts to deploy high-quality product features.

Prior to Stonehaven, Mr. Shukla spent over ten years managing and leading projects in the law, healthcare, and pharmaceutical industries focusing on software development, business solutions, efficiency, productivity improvements, and troubleshooting. He recently worked extensively in Salesforce on enterprise projects focusing on implementations and product enhancements for pharmaceutical clients.

Mr. Shukla has a B.S. in Business Administration with certificates in Information Technology and Operations Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently pursuing Administrator and Platform App Builder Salesforce certificates.

Mr. Shukla currently resides in Northern Jersey, although his heart will always remain in Philadelphia.

About Daniel Hong

Mr. Daniel Hong is a Director of Business Development responsible for helping lead the growth plan of Stonehaven, covering the Western Region of the firm.  In this role, Mr. Hong partners with management to help establish firm-wide growth goals and solutions, lead the recruitment of qualified Affiliate Partners, manage prospective Affiliate Partner relationships, and interface with the executive team in a leadership role.

Prior to Stonehaven, Mr. Hong spent over ten years in the commercial banking industry, most recently as a Team Leader in the Commercial Banking division of City National Bank responsible for managing a team of bankers driving market share for the bank in the Greater Los Angeles market.  Before joining City National Bank, Mr. Hong was a Senior Vice President in the Commercial Banking division of Wells Fargo Bank covering middle market firms and responsible for originating new business development.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Hong held a leadership role with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in the Financial Services Group supporting operational policies that covered depository institutions within the Twelfth District.

Mr. Hong earned an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California with a concentration in Finance, and a BA from the University of California at Berkeley.

Mr. Hong lives in Frisco, TX with his wife, two children, and two dogs.

About Kayle Watson

Mr. Kayle Watson is a Director of Business Development responsible for helping lead the growth plan of Stonehaven, covering the Eastern Region of the firm. In this role, Mr. Watson partners with management to help establish firm-wide growth goals and solutions, lead the recruitment of qualified Affiliate Partners, manage prospective Affiliate Partner relationships, and interface with the executive team in a leadership role.

Prior to Stonehaven, Mr. Watson was the Head of Distribution for the Institutional and Retail sectors for 21Shares, a cryptocurrency start-up where he headed up the firm's US distribution strategy, coordinated product development, and key involvement in delivering all facets of the European-based firm to the US. He built and managed the US distribution team and US product team. 

Mr. Watson spent 9 years with BlackRock’s iShares ETF group where he was responsible for driving the institutional adoption of ETFs. He was responsible for developing and building relationships with Asset Managers and Hedge Funds and was generating in excess of $ 3 billion in sales annually. He was tasked with revamping their Hedge Fund strategy in 2021. He started his career on Wall Street joining Bear Stearns where he spent 9 years as an Institutional Sales Representative covering Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, and other institutional accounts. After Bear Stearns, he joined Telsey Advisors as Head of Sales where he built their distribution team and strategy to cover the United States. He spent 4 years with iSuppli, a technology firm specializing in semiconductor and tear-down research building their Wall Street division. The firm was acquired by IHS Markit. 

Mr. Watson earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. After graduating, he spent 3 years on a Naval Destroyer managing 90 sailors and running the Engineering Department. He was then selected to attend the prestigious and rigorous Basic Underwater Demolition School (BUDs) SEAL Training where he was Class Leader. After completion, he went on to serve two Platoon Commander tours with SEAL Team Eight and Two. 

He holds Series 7 and 63 registrations and is a CFA Level II Candidate.

Mr. Watson lives in Millwood, NY with his two children.

About Ed Corrao

Edward Corrao is the Mandate Operations Counsel at Stonehaven. Mr. Corrao manages mandate legal operations, which include contracting, legal due diligence, and marketing material compliance. He also works closely with the Head of Due Diligence & Mandate Management on various strategic initiatives, including process and technology design.

Prior to Stonehaven, Mr. Corrao has over 20 years of experience in progressively senior legal roles supporting asset managers, swap dealers, insurance agencies, transfer agents, and other market intermediaries, most recently as Senior Legal Counsel and Vice President at Goldman Sachs Ayco.  Previously, he held similar roles at ALPS, State Street Global Advisors, Bank of America, and Fidelity Investments. In addition to extensive experience drafting and negotiating various types of agreements, he is well versed in the regulation of financial markets and the administration of both registered and unregistered collective investment vehicles.

Mr. Corrao earned his J.D. from Suffolk University School of Law and his LL.M with a concentration in Securities Law from Boston University Law School. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Psychology. 

Mr. Corrao now resides in the Saratoga, NY area. He is originally from the Greater Boston area and continues to be a devoted fan of all Boston sports teams.

About Vy Theologidy

Ms. Vy Theologidy is the Due Diligence and Mandate Operations Manager at Stonehaven. Ms. Theologidy manages all aspects of Mandate operations including onboarding, due diligence, marketing preparedness, visibility, and ongoing support across direct and alternative investment funds and managers.

Prior to Stonehaven, Ms. Theologidy worked in the retail futures industry as the New Accounts Manager at NinjaTrader. She led the team through multiple mergers while optimizing the onboarding experience for both employees and customers.

Ms. Theologidy graduated from The University of Illinois at Chicago pursuing Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics. She has completed her higher studies in Mathematics at Benedictine University, Chicago.

Ms. Theologidy currently holds the Series 3 and 34 certifications with FINRA.

About Clint McGowan

Mr. Clint McGowan is the Director of Compliance at Stonehaven. Mr. McGowan manages the compliance systems and performs supervisory oversight relating to the Firm’s activities in supporting the CCO. He also contributes to planning the overall strategic direction of the Firm, supervising operations, creating and implementing systems that provide scale to the Firm’s platform, providing strategic guidance to employees and Affiliate Partners, and identifying and cultivating long-term strategic relationships.

Prior to joining Stonehaven, Mr. McGowan worked for the last 16 years with the AYCO Company, L.P., a Goldman Sachs Company (Ayco) as Vice President of Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering. Prior to Ayco, he worked at Fidelity Investments as a Service & Trading Representative on their Merrimack NH phone site.

Mr. McGowan is also proud to serve the community as a volunteer firefighter with the Greenfield NY fire district.  Mr. McGowan currently resides in beautiful upstate NY where he enjoys hiking and camping with his wife and three dogs.

Mr. McGowan currently holds Series 7, 9, 10, 24, and 63 registrations with FINRA.